


and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence

by onslenderaccident (dschslava)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Weird POVs, is anything real, more experimental episodic stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:49:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28789011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dschslava/pseuds/onslenderaccident
Summary: Luke and Mara have some strange dreams or experiences when a visitor pops in unexpectedly.
Relationships: Mara Jade/Luke Skywalker





	and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence

“Enter chorus.

I am my own chorus.”

—Anne Carson,  _ Norma Jean Baker of Troy _

Once there was a blue boy. 

* * *

One might have been forgiven for stealing away from the dinner, but Mara happened not to be attending but hosting this time, which made her absence difficult. The newly-appeared duck and residual conversation would tide her guests over for a bit (bless Luke for his cooking), buying her some time to refresh herself. How Luke, the once-farmboy, stood such social scrutiny she could not understand; it was as if their respective roots were displayed in how they were set apart from the person. 

She slipped into her study but kept the lights off. A breeze through the open window rustled something, and then she noticed the mess of papers on the floor. Sighing, she crossed the room, pulled shut the window, jerking at the last bit (this track  _ must _ be readjusted, she thought), then bent down to clean up.

“Didn’t think I’d find you here.” 

Mara’s heart jumped, and she fought to get her breathing under control as she turned. The voice came from behind her. Solid mezzo soprano. Timbre unfamiliar— _ did _ she remember this voice? She ought to—her dinner guests were good friends. 

She flicked on a light. The person appeared silhouetted in an alcove; the light was directly behind their head, so that they appeared almost to wear a halo.

They turned, and immediately Mara saw that the mystery person was in fact perched on a small table. They had brown hair and grey eyes—this person Mara certainly did not recognize.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“I don’t think we’ve met,” replied the person, “though I know you. I’m Callista. Luke and I go far back.”

“Callista,” repeated Mara. “Callista. I don’t quite remember seeing you come in with any of the others.”

Callista raised an eyebrow. “I’ve been around,” she said, “for quite some time.”

Mara blinked. Was this—surely Luke hadn’t—and yet all those conversations to thin air heard through the open windows of the study, those notes in books that she’d thought were from previous owners—

“No. Mara, you’ve nothing to fear from me, or from Luke. I’m just an old friend.”

“An old friend?”

“Old friend. I’ve come to talk to you.”   
  
“I think I’ve some questions for  _ you _ .”

“Fair, alright. How’d you like to start?” 

“ Start at the begi—how? Start wherever it started.”

* * *

“Mara, that’s going to be a long while. Now—”

From: Callista Ming <c.ming@cray.com>

To: Luke Skywalker <lsky@jedi.org>

Sent: June 6, 2010; 12:32 pm

Subject: issue questions

Dear Mr. Skywalker,

Continuing on our quasi-interview from the other day:

Could you comment on Ministers Ackbar and Organa’s plans to continue the centralization of military authority with regard to the Corellian crisis? As I understand it, Corellia has long enjoyed effective autonomy, even while under Imperial rule. Then wouldn’t this series of reforms encroach on their perceived rights?

Thanks,

Callista Ming

From: Luke Skywalker <lsky@jedi.org>

To: Callista Ming <c.ming@cray.com>

Sent: June 8, 2010; 2:50 am

Subject: Re: issue questions

Callista,

Questions of this nature do not fall under my purview and as such are best directed to the respective ministries. 

Regards,

Luke

From: Luke Skywalker <lsky@jedi.org>

To: Callista Ming <c.ming@cray.com>

Sent: June 8, 2010; 5:50 am

Subject: note

I also don’t seem to recall how we came to this subject. Begging your pardon—do you mind refreshing my memory?

Luke

From: Callista Ming <c.ming@cray.com>

To: Luke Skywalker <lsky@jedi.org>

Sent: June 8, 2010; 10:02 am

Subject: Re: note

We met at Minister Organa’s soirée that other night. Great fun that. You seemed very relaxed and open.

Callista

From: Luke Skywalker <lsky@jedi.org>

To: Callista Ming <c.ming@cray.com>

Sent: September 8, 2010; 3:14 am

Subject: on your last

Callista,

So sorry for the extended silence. You can guess why; by this point all the secrets and crises are out. I apologize for not remembering you a few weeks ago; you can probably guess why too. 

Begging your pardon, do you know if I might have slipped something else during our conversation then?

Regards,

Luke

From: Callista Ming <c.ming@cray.com>

To: Luke Skywalker <lsky@jedi.org>

Sent: September 9, 2010; 9:05 am

Subject: Re: on your last

Luke,

Answering your question would take all the fun out of it, wouldn’t it?

Tell you what. I see you’re still in the Bay, so let’s get coffee. Bartavelle, Saturday, at ten-thirty. I’ll be wearing blue.

Callista

* * *

Saturday came, and it was nearly ten by the time I found myself suitably caffeinated to get myself ready. I hurried out of my friend’s apartment, pointedly ignoring their knowing smiles, and promptly tripped on an uneven stair while trying to balance my phone and notebook, spilling the contents of my pockets all over the ground.

I bent to pick them up. Pen, wallet, Clipper. Keys. At least I had the important stuff. Fuck, the bus comes in one minute; that’s not nearly enough time. I really wish that I had a bike. 

Bartavelle was on the other side of Berkeley. I had now only forty minutes. Transit service had been cut on account of a holiday. Should I walk then? I  _ could _ . I would walk, briskly, but taking care to avoid hills where I could. 

Then there I was at the café. Cute place. Red brick, patio, plenty of wood. The sun was shining. How much time left? The phone said—it said two minutes. Or three. Doesn’t matter. I don’t remember this specifically, but then, in between the couple holding hands over a table and a napping tortoiseshell cat, there he was.

I do remember this: I had black coffee. He took hot chocolate and a croissant. Sip (him), sip (me). He asked about my day, and I decided to be open about it; he seemed inviting. Then I asked about  _ his _ day, and he smiled, sighed, and eyed me as if I could have been up to no good. “Nothing,” he said. “Of note. Eh. I saw a cat. Are you a reporter?”   
  
“We’re friends here. Do you have something to hide?”

He smiled thinly. “I suppose you could say that I had a bit of an experience this morning.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s kind of like yours, in that it involves trying to get here. I was up early, around five, and there wasn’t much going on, so I decided to just get dressed and wander around. I know that there are good sunrise-watching spots up in the hills; I didn’t get to them. Maybe tomorrow.”   
  
“Are you usually up this early, or are you still jetlagged?”

“I don’t get jetlagged.” Another sip. “It’s just habit. The war and, before that, I grew up on a farm.”

I nodded. He pinched his thumb, and continued:

“I ran into this family of raccoons crossing the street. Really cute. Also all the flowers in yards are really nice. I spent a lot of time admiring them; it was pretty light out once I’d decided to get going, and so I took the bus back up to a spot five blocks from here. I don’t like to cross the street to my destination unless it’s the Met. In any case, I get off, start walking, and I can’t help but notice debris strewn about. This isn’t too uncommon in Berkeley, so I’ve gathered, but for some reason my gut is saying  _ no _ , and that’s saved me many times during the war in operations and sorties and such. So I stop and look around, and something by a chain-link fence catches my eye. 

“What do I see? A doll. Dolls give me the creeps. And this one had a floral-print dress on, and its arms were twisted awfully. Why was that even there? I don’t want to think about it, god. But then I saw an orange tabby stalking by and I went all  _ pspspsps _ at it and it looked at me and I swear to god it was about to come over right up until it saw the doll out of the corner of its eye and just tore off. Just tore off and left me with the doll.”

He certainly didn’t sound like the placid figure I had seen in the news, and I told him so. He laughed. “I don’t know about placid. Maybe anti-garrulous?”

“You’re still being open.”

“We’re certainly not professionals here. Who knows what you saw and heard back on that night?”

“You don’t,” I shrugged. “And I’m not telling you, so why take the risk?”

“I do,” he said. “Leia told me. She told me that you told her.”

She—

I—

“You’re enjoying yourself,” I said.

He smiled. “Never trust a politician.”

“And here I was thinking that this would be good ammunition for her. The great sisterhood and all that.”

“Well,” he winced, “it was. Gave me a good scare. She had me thinking that I’d given away state secrets in pillow talk. Real fantasy shit, now that I look back upon it. But her tone, and the fact that she’d roped Director Cracken in on the prank, well, I thought I’d have my name scrubbed. So there you have it. You scared a war hero. Good on you. By the way, Leia sends her thanks.”   
  
A trolley trundled by a block away. Two children chased an errant frisbee across the street. The smells of fresh bread washed over us as the breeze changed.

“Oh,” I said.

He sipped his drink. My gaze followed the fenceline to a golden retriever refusing to give up their tennis ball, then back to him. His phone vibrated, and he glanced at it then back at me, apologetically.

“It was nice,” I said.

“It was,” he said. “Hope to talk to you later.”

He left his croissant.

* * *

The principles remained the same. Contest the center, if not directly, then from afar; develop pieces quickly, mind open and semi-open files and diagonals, be sure not to let loose pieces drop off.

Manage your time, and remember to say j’adoube. Make the move, and only then write it down on your scoresheet. Pawns can’t move backwards, so look to take advantage of holes left in their wake. Play g6, to kick away the bishop, motherfucker. I fucking dare you. Don’t get into pins, don’t double pawns; they leave weaknesses too.

When Mara began to master the basics, and after some opening study, she moved on to greater analysis under the watchful eye of an engine and her instructor, the emperor.

The bishop is better placed on e3 than g5. Bishop to d2 in this line might be something useful to uncork later.

And then know when to break these principles you learned. Taking on f3 with the pawn instead of the bishop strengthens the center and opens a file for the rook. Unless it doesn’t. We expect you to put up a good showing against that measly moff tonight, and then against his associates next week.

How to move, how to act; it all ran together. 

* * *

Some great time after they met:

“Leia sent me to find you.”

Luke looked up. 

“Tell her that I’ll be out soon.”

“Okay,” said Mara. No, wait. He was not well. Ill? “Are you all right?”

Nod. Something’s wrong; I know him too well. “Luke, would you like a hug?”

He sighed, held out his arms, stepped in. They stayed like that for a bit, breathing. Leia can woo the committee chairs by herself. Luke’s hair smelled of apples. Trying again:

“Are you all right?” asked Mara.

“Just some stuff,” said Luke. Mara waited for him to go on, but the silence hung for a while. Luke rubbed his eyes.

“So nothing’s  _ up _ ?” asked Mara.

“No,” said Luke. “It’s just—it’s hard balancing losing Dad with how he thought, and how he practiced his politics. And it’s hard to separate myself from his cruel legacy with the world’s eyes on me. Not like he never hurt me. I thought he was dead for nineteen years, then came the war where we fought each other, and still this name curses me. Someone who knew him back when he lived in a backwater desert town in indentured servitude told me that this name—this Skywalker thing—was one that  _ his _ mother chose to take for her own, after a desert myth about a man in the sky.

“Uncle Owen told me about her. Sometimes, Aunt Beru told me about the man in the sky too, before I slept. The man who hung the stars…

“Dad’s ruined it. I don’t want to run from my name, but only its baggage. Then Mon Mothma and Leia want me to be some figurehead-thing, like how we’ve changed as a nation, how things are looking up, but then change is so fucking hard. I don’t doubt at least a third of the nation is eager to depose and execute us all. I want to love and redeem them and yet.”

I exhaled. “It’s hard. I can’t imagine.” Listen, just listen, this is all so much, all so much. “I’ll be here.”

Luke shuddered. “I’d said that I wouldn’t speak, but I’m too far gone now. I’m so sorry. I—you shouldn’t. Be my—. I shouldn’t make you my therapist or anything. You’re just a friend. Good friend. I don’t even know why you’re here. It’s as if you knew I was in trouble. But you shouldn’t be here; you shouldn’t know; not your responsibility.”

Awful. If I could make him better, take some of his pain, take him away for a bit. Wait, yes. “Would you care for a distraction?”

He grimaced, then nodded. Can’t hurt; break the rhythm, damn motor rhythms. 

So then I told him a story, and afterwards he sighed, hung his head between his knees, and was silent for a long while. Then he muttered something which I couldn’t quite catch, and I asked him to repeat what he said. He seemed to ignore me, bit his lip, and sat up. His shadow danced and dissolved with the fire in the hearth, which burned steadily on. 

“I’m so sorry for what you’re going through, and I promise I’ll be here for you.” I stood up—stomach pain. Need to go. This new voice of Luke’s is frightening. Only I—. Don’t think, no time, can’t have  _ pausa _ . Can’t fault him _ per se _ but still. Maybe he’s calmer but only for a bit.

Think. Keep engagement, but what to do? Empathize, offer to help. All right: “I’m sorry, again. If there’s anything I can do for you...you, uh. Tell me? Oh. Would you like a hug?”

“Anything? Anything. Don’t fault me for my weakness for crème du cassis, for raspberry sorbets. But don’t tell me to go around sticking swords into backs. I flit between worlds as my mood shifts. I’ll be hard now, but come again in half an hour and you’ll see me wrapped up in these soft blankets like a child. Oh I’d like a child. If only I could rock by the fire and rear up every nine months and so fix my dismay. I’ve fixed it all right. But my only fireside was the outhouse; there my mascara may yet stop running, and then I can be filled with relief in those circular cottages of delight. 

So let me wound myself in the thigh and float down all the Seine. Let me have my drink and go home and regress to reaching for porcelain dolls. My soul is paralyzed but slips through my fingers effortlessly like sand in an hourglass. Then add enough heat and then the sand turns to glass. They’re not so different, but one eats away at the other like nocturnal misgivings at our poor dear selves. And so what do you know of the night, and of how we change in it? We are different creatures then, or maybe a matter of mere perception. We separate day from night, and thereby reject what we become then, which manifests as fear or suppression, but time snakes on. I think of day and night as one continually; I will not reject the monster I become. I know what monster I am underneath these trappings. When I transform during the night, it is you who has not renounced gowns and corsets.”

Luke rubbed his eyes. I blinked, opened my mouth, found that I could not follow that with anything, then reached to pat their shoulder. 

“Look at me,” said Luke. “Look at poor him. See me now.”

* * *

I next met Luke in Washington Square Park, watching people play chess, safely ensconced within the security zone. He had relatively recently become interested, owing to a resurgence in upper political circles, which Leia had felt obligated to humor, and, as I had been playing from a young age, I offered to play or teach him when we were next available. 

This led to a walk, and then dinner, where we drank plenty of wine to accompany pasta and conversation. That shifted from inks to ballet to Markov chains, though eventually it turned to work, and here Luke let his annoyance be known with a sigh and a good swallow. The Senate, ever-fractious, had bogged down again, this time on a matter of road appropriations for member states linked via rider to the regulation of paper mills.

Must be dull, I said. Maybe, he said, but this in itself was important but also bore implications for structural integrity of the government. 

First, road funding in a few member states had not been reallocated internally since before the war. To—

No, stop. Cut to the chase. Meeting time was valuable; she’d learned that as Talon Karrde’s second. 

Inequities. Urban-rural. Historic grudges exacerbated. Redrawing polities to dilute such base feeling had run into procedural obstacles posed by a faction consisting of dissatisfied cross-cum-backbenchers interested in diverting disproportionate appropriations for their own (to be fair, their systems’) benefit. The bureaucracy has still not completed deimperialization. Just another day, you know. I have to go on sabbatical sooner or later.

Why do you stay? But she knew the answer. They both did. They ordered dessert. Helicopters buzzed overhead and then past, searchlights flaring.

* * *

Jackie Mentis and Hans Barnes had been in training at the Special Conservatory since birth. 

They’d started very young. They’d learned their letters longside rhythms; takadimi, takadimi, ta, tadi ta. Their instruments were chosen by lot. Jackie drew percussion; Hans the contrabass. 

Their days were rigidly structured. What time spent not in expressly musical instruction or study was spent in interpersonal practice—Charming Donors, Nonverbal Intrasection Communication, and, for brass and only brass, Timing Practical Jokes. The goal of all this was to provide a steady stream of musicians to perform in ensembles across the world, and, more importantly, to perform at state and private functions of varying significance. It was then of great importance to perform to the Conservatory’s long and gloried legacy and to secure a plum posting.

But as befits any place with a high concentration of young people, there were often shenanigans. The administration was not in the habit of cracking down harshly; their priority was in education. Then in professional life these sort of activities could provide more media attention to certain organizations—sometimes good, sometimes bad, depending on who patronized such activities.

In this fashion Hans skated by for years, such was his talent.

Jackie was not as fortunate, though, as he bunked with Hans, soon they were inseparable. There were, of course, no families to run back to or to receive care packages from; they were all orphans. They came in all appearances, which made it so that, occasionally, it was still possible to run into, on the street, some person of remarkably similar age and appearance.

Now one of the few restrictions on behavior here was that on free movement, and this referred only to the extensive network of tunnels that lay beneath the school. Rumor had it that they were connected to panic rooms beneath the seats of government. The dean said they were mainly disused, except for those which the school used for storage.

Jackie and Han became drawn to this source of mystery. We know that they texted each other to coordinate a time to break into the tunnels. We also know that they seem to have saw something interesting enough to want to return later. We know that one of these things was a locked door, but with a shiny keyhole recessed in rust—recently used. 

The next day, the anonymous patron of the school visited, face and build well-hidden by long, flowing, black robes. Jackie and Hans were sitting in the atrium working on Schenkerian analysis when they saw the dean escort the figure into the elevator, presumably to their office. When they saw the dean later, her neck was noticeably clear of any key, which had stayed around her neck for as long as they could remember.

That night, they found the door to the tunnels ajar. They followed cautiously, taking care to step silently, and then they, in the chamber of the locked door, came upon Black Robes slipping into the—what?—now-opened door. 

At this point neither Jackie nor Hans knew what gripped them, whether it was fear or an animalistic curiosity, but this gripped their feet and dragged them steadily through the ground towards the door. Inside they saw Black Robes raise a table from the ground. On it lay a figure wearing a red mask; it must have been forced on, for it fit badly, and the figure was chained. They could see how the chains were slightly worn from struggle, and yet the mask lay without a scratch.

Black Robes was incanting something while pacing around the table, and as he did, Chains began to shake and scream, but the mask muffled these screams to a surprising extent. Bumps began to appear in the mask despite this, and soon they watched in muted horror as the mask deformed to fit perfectly the face upon which it sat, the bumps hardened into sharp horns, and Chains opened their yellow eyes and twisted their hand, and now the room began to shake.

Now Black Robes turned his wizened face and beckoned them to come.

We do not know what happened afterwards, only that Jackie and Hans were seen in studio the next day with bags under their eyes, and not once afterwards did they stray from the best of behaviors. The key disappeared forever from around the dean’s neck, and some months later, she died of a fall from her balcony. And occasionally thereafter, the police would find a corpse or two in neglected alleyways with unnaturally bent limbs or strange burns about their neck.

* * *

You might remember a galaxy far, far away, with dramatic personages and struggles for power and for good, and many forking paths in and from it in space and time. But more tangibly, through great avenues of trade official and unofficial, some more prominent than others, such contact is made. And when conflict comes it puts to the contest the greater arteries, the more liminal spaces, and starves the more impotent, the more helpless, ineffectual systems. Here on Earth we and Luke attempt to bind us all together with these connections so we might yet take leaps and bounds without hurt. But let us imagine (or Luke, or Mara, sitting by the fire, reading calmly):

_ Star maps of broken capillaries: _

Luke was flying. They had been drifting off, and found themself back in a cockpit, flying through space. It all seemed familiar, as if flying affinity was something inextricably linked to them, their self, their dreams. The sensor board showed his old squadron mates, some long gone, some dead, killed in the war. Wedge, Tycho, Corran. It also showed Mara on his wing, and they sensed her resolve; the enemy must be defeated. 

Space they knew well. A great battle was at hand, and here they were in the middle of it. Mark your wingman. Watch your six. Get that cruiser; torpedoes away. They’d done it before; they had to take care not to slip up. That reactor’s going critical; get clear. Boom, again; shock and fire winked out in vacuum. A small respite now; he closed his eyes to meditate for a bit. But instead their mind drifted. Maybe they could hear Mara’s voice in his ear, and the crackling of a fire, and she was reading to them.

_ crown of infrared _

_song of drifting dune_

Circling, circling. Luke now remembered a childhood trip to Utah with their aunt and uncle; they imagined shimmering sands with crescents lazing their ways towards the horizon. But when they woke up in the car, they saw no such thing. And then they hiked around, and all the sand was stuck to the ground. Bound by bacterial fibers and moss and lichen, the sand had hardened into a crust, and there it had remained, trapped, for many years. There were no sand dunes here, no free windborne dust, and neither were there roots to sink down into the ground. The desert was clean.

_ The smooth-boled trees of his interior _

_ blossoming and unblossoming: _

Lasers flashed and sputtered; a corvette spun slowly by, gasping sheets of vapor. 

Rewind. That small dark shape dropping from beyond the Star Destroyer; that was—they sensed nobody on it, but the telemetry relayed from their carrier showed it squarely in their grid and as an unknown ship. Was the controller too overwhelmed to call and designate? Mara sensed it too, and reoriented the squadron to give them cover as he thought. Come to think of it, that ship had to have had a cleared departure. And if they couldn’t sense anyone aboard, if Mara hadn’t exaggerated the new extent of Jacen’s powers which she felt briefly at Kavan—

If she had died—if she had died on Kavan, above Coruscant, after they’d met on Mykyr, before even that—

Pursue that ship; bring Jacen to justice. Nevertheless, there was this time, many years ago, when Luke had let themself be captured by nefarious forces, with horrid consequences. And afterward all they could do was meditate and try to find himself and guidance. But they led himself in spirals, and drew in upon himself for their failure. They ate and nothing as penance for the thousands of lives lost. They drank plenty as penance for firing too slowly at the bogey on their wingmate’s tail. Dimly, they could feel concern about him, and then they drifted off.

They woke to find Mara watching them. It was warm and the apartment was surprisingly clean. This all seemed eerily familiar, as if they had lived this life before, sometime long ago. The tenor, the words, the timbre. 

“Oh, Luke,” whispered Mara, tears in her eyes,“I spent six days almost touching you.”

* * *

So we go now.

* * *

So we go.

* * *

I like to log my flights. It’s a way of seeing just how far I’ve come; just how much I’ve aged and grown. It’s a shorthand of indexing my time, my memories. 

Usually flying is a comforting routine. Sit, wait, up we go, and above the clouds, oh, could you stay there. Sometimes there’s some spice, like the time my mother grabbed my arm in fear after she overheard a pilot say something about a broken instrument, or when my flight was diverted for lack of fuel due to high winds. I’m not so sure about that. But usually the travel is enough, the calm before the other mouth of the tunnel disgorges me, us.

Today that spice was when my seatmate died in flight. She’d looked a bit unwell, to be fair, but given circumstances, we were all a bit unwell. She kept her scarf on but stowed her coat. 

Her name was Claire, and she was originally from Montréal, though with the war and all she’d spent time crossing the Atlantic. Shannon, Wilmington, Hamburg, then finally Montpelier. Three languages, but only one child, though, she said, he lived close by, and helped take care of her cats. Also, she was flying to get treatment for a rather nasty skin condition that left sores and cuts all over her body; want to see some? No, I tried, but no sound came out. She laughed, and began to primp and arrange her nest, and I settled down to nap and stare out the window and otherwise relax for the flight. A while later I felt a bump, and some raised voices, but I shook them off to doze some more. And then I heard through semiconsciousness the plane’s engines slowing, so I tried to shake myself awake with uncoordinated jerks. 

I opened my eyes to see a cluster of flight attendants by my row and a mask on Claire’s face. She’s just had an accident, said one of them to an inquiring passenger, but her eyes said otherwise. The purser bent over and said sorry, Miss Ming, they couldn’t move me anywhere due to lack of space. That’s fine, my eyes said. So sorry, again. Stepping off of the plane, I fell into line behind a rather short blond figure dressed somewhat shabbily. But I’d seen him line up for business class, so I guess he must have been a sort of rich tech person. 

I heard that someone died on the plane.

Yes, I said. I was next to her. I don’t know what happened. Heart attack? Something else?

Well, he looked down, truly unfortunate. He looked back up, straight into my eyes, into me, as if he was feeling me from the inside out, as if he knew. Your hair, he said. It’s very white. 

Oh. I escaped as a toddler one day and was struck by lightning. What are you?

His name was Luke. Worked in the government; he’d just gotten back from a business trip. Stuff he can’t talk about, but what were you doing in Paris? Didn’t you enjoy all the pastries, but my god all the butter.

We talked through border control and baggage claim, and then we had to split for transportation. He had a car waiting; I was taking the metro. 

I did enjoy talking with you today, he said, and I am concerned about you, because it was quite a shock today. Take my card, he said, and talk to me later, to ease my worry. Conscience. Something like that.

He took my hand, stole my pulse, and walked away.

* * *

Once, after Mara, on a research trip, Luke found themself driving past Nebraskan cornfields. The road was flat and straight; the rows of corn brushed past him. There were no trees in the fields and prairie; water was too scarce for them. Luke could not regress and become attached to the living tree, identifying as a tree, that classic error, but still he could not learn, even in such a forced environment, to learn to wander, not for the whole, but for the part. 

The interior continent, despite population growth, still felt empty, and Luke was grateful for the autopilot, but not how it did not relieve boredom. Their eyes traced the descent of sunbeams through a cloud. Rain would come soon and bless the earth. Then maybe they could make a wish. But they were tired. When white men first settled the plains, and stayed, maybe this broad emptiness found a home in them. This flatness found in minds an innate kinship and drew them together. Luke was not such white men, but it didn’t really matter. After decades of marriage, being alone was hell. Their mind floated out and away but still could not find anchor or direction. 

Luke wished that they could take a brush and draw back an earlier state to relive it, to right wrongs, to better explore that garden of forking paths. Maybe they could have kissed their Jen that evening in Manhattan, and then they would have laughed at that, then leant in for another kiss. Maybe they could have instead met in Paris twenty years after that fateful argument and rekindled a friendship. Caravaggio and macarons; Sylvie Guillem’s troupe and playing Rachmaninoff’s etudes on a street piano in Montmartre. Or maybe they could have folded completely in university, and left behind fragments of verse in handwriting beautiful yet completely illegible. And maybe, in the first war, their birth?

But all that grew muddled quickly, and they grew exhausted trying to follow these paths to their sources. Prune the branches; better yet, abandon the search. Let the hippopotamus stuck in the marsh drown, and see intuition instead of variation. They lay back down, and tried to measure how much more he had yet to travel. They could not come all this country alone for nothing. The road stretched surely on.

“I thought I’d find you there.”

Mara turned to find Luke leaning against the open door. He quirked an eyebrow, raised his glass of wine. “Dessert’ll be ready soon.”

“Dessert?” She glanced to both sides. No, Callista was gone. Luke sniffed, then left. Mara glanced at a paper Callista had dropped; she’d supposed it was a note of sorts, maybe a shopping list, she didn’t know, but saw now that the handwriting was Luke’s.

Leaving, she sniffed. Perfume? It was an unfamiliar scent at that. She stopped. Her gaze fell onto a porcelain doll, slightly dusty, dressed in lace. She took it, dropped it in the trash bin, and made her way outside to wine and friends around a fire.

* * *

Much later:

Luke trudged back through the snow towards their campsite. Mara must have been getting a head start on the s’mores, and maybe some glühwein too, depending on her mood. Probably just s’mores; the dinner party seemed to have taken a bit out of her.

When they emerged into the clearing, they found that Mara was doing neither. She had leaned forward in her chair towards the fire, and seemed to have been thinking for some time. 

“I know about Callista,” said Mara, not turning. “I don’t hold anything against you, and we’ll talk more later, but I wonder how you two are. Separately, emotionally. And also—”

She took a nibble at some chocolate. 

“I was thinking about what I was doing while you were in Berkeley with her,” Mara continued. “All that time wasted which we could have spent together. And it turns out that I was in Japan then. Osaka and Kyoto, on break from classified stuff. Him, you know, but one of my last jobs.

“It was autumn then, so the maples were delightful shades of russet, and each new rainstorm brought with it a cleaner air and another opportunity to wear sweaters and scarves. I’d brought just one scarf, actually; it was one which my ex had gifted me. It was a very nice one, but once the rains stopped on my last day and the heat kicked back up a notch, there wasn’t a reason to keep wearing it. So I put it away into my bag.

“Then I was packing that night, and the scarf had gone. Maybe I’d left it at a teahouse, or at one of the restaurants in Kyoto station. But it was gone, and with it remnants of a relationship, of scattered memories of awkwardness and growing to fill spaces. 

“It hadn’t ended that well, because of our schedules, mine especially, and the secret nature of my job, but mostly because we weren’t right for each other. But you know how breakups are.

“Once the scarf had disappeared, though, all that was gone. All the desires to be wanted, to be touched gently. All that and the experience of being known was over, and all  _ I _ knew then was the story of the two girls who lived by the sea which my caretaker had told me every night as a child until she was replaced. I wanted a sister then.”

Mara stopped and poked at the fire with a stick, though it had a ways to go before dying. Luke held out their hand. A log fell, being burned in half, sending a shower of sparks that rose, riding the breeze away into the night sky, until they were stars.

* * *

Walking in Fast-Falling Dusk What Is between Us Besides

this sharpness of pines, this gravel loose

beneath us, faltering with each rustle, each step, with what we’re not

saying to each other—Now your flashlight’s beam angles

into the thickness, dead petals the color of light honey

unfasten from their coppery centers, dark berries shine

clustered above twig tips, above forked edges of leaves, above

everything unnamed between us I have

not forgiven—still overflowing toward us while still

arrested, suspended, in all the shadows

of everything I don’t know how to feel

that slant toward the awkward shapes our bodies make as we

walk over what may be moss or violets in the dark, over

things maybe veined or dank or thorned or now

between us, Can’t you slow down I say

though I am not falling behind.

—Mary Szybist

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired heavily by Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi. Some lesser inspiration from Memorial Day 1950 by Frank O'Hara, Nightwood by Djuna Barnes, and Ignatz Aubade by Monica Youn.
> 
> Title from Middlemarch.


End file.
